Card Making

Happy December everyone! Finally, I can sing Christmas songs and wear my Christmas jumper without getting the scornful eye from hubby! Haha! YIPPEEE! I love Christmas! Fingers crossed we can get our decorations up today!

And even though I don’t normally make a lot of Christmas cards, I simply couldn’t resist buying this cute Christmas stamp set from MyFavoriteThings, called ‘Beast Friends’, which has the most adorable little yeti monsters ever!! And I love that they can be used for non-Christmas occasions too – multi-use stamps definitely get extra points in my book! <3

In my last video, I used colouring pencils to create a soft, textured look on a cute stamped owl image, and in todays card I am using a similar technique with watercolours. I just love the way it gives so much life to a card, but doesn’t add lots and lots of dimension which makes it hard to post.

In fact, this whole card is a one-layer card – there is zero dimension to it at all. I am sure you know that this is pretty unusual for me (as I LOOVEE dimension) but I like to mix it up now and again! Plus, I really wanted to paint this cute monster! HE’S ADORABLE!

First I used masking paper to mask two areas of my watercolour cardstock, then I stamped images all over the background to create a pattern. I used memento ink for this because I knew that it is waterproof and would not bleed when I added the watercolour paint. The masking paper that I have is actually more like masking plastic, so it resists the ink and paint, although most masking paper is more like a post it note – so it doesn’t resist the ink, but still protects the card underneath. Both work just fine, but if you are trying this at home with the paper mask – then yours might look a little different compared to mine in the video at this stage.

I used tumbled glass and broken china distress inks on my background, and then reached for my kuretake gansai tambi watercolours to colour in the images on my card. I used both a number 4 and number 3 ProArte round paint brush, mostly the number 4 – it has a nice point which makes it easy to make even small lines on my project.

Once the background was coloured and dried, I then removed the mask and stamped the yeti image using tea dye distress ink. This creates a very light stamped image that is barely visible – you can use the lines as a guide for painting, but when the painting is complete, you cannot see any trace of stamped lines. This way you can pretend that you are a super good illustrator and painter, and no one will ever know the difference! LOL

When it came to painting the yeti, layers was the key for me, and because of this, it certainly took time. The video is rather sped up but I wanted you to see the whole card come together, so please forgive me if its a bit faster than my usual videos. Even though this card doesn’t have actual dimension, I wanted to create the illusion of dimension, and to do this I used my paintbrush to paint small lines for the yeti’s fur, and used a variety of different colour tones. I wasn’t afraid to leave a few white (unpainted) spots, as this actually makes it look like highlights on the image.

Around the edges of the image I used my paints to create a darker border or outline of each coloured section, and also added some shadows using watered down black paint. I like the way this gives more life to the final image!

Once I was happy with my painted yeti, I then moved over to my greeting. I removed the strip of masking paper from the bottom of the card, and used my MISTI tool and some SSS Sparrow ink to stamp the ‘are you YETI for Christmas?’ stamp, also from the MFT Beast Friends set.

My card was almost done, I simply added a few details with my white gel pen, around the scalloped circle, greeting strip and to add highlights to some the background images – especially the Santa hats.

I simply mounted the painted cardstock onto a folded card blank and my the card was done! HAZZAH!
Isn’t it cute! I love him!

Be sure to check out the video here, walking you through the whole process, and at the end of the video you will also see another painted yeti that I made for a tag.

In other news, the HoneyBeeStamps gang are having a Crafty Clearout! Jump on over to the ‘clearing out the hive’ Facebook page, and look at the ALBUMS to see what is available from each of the girls.

Some designers are based in the UK, others are from elsewhere in the world, so postage will vary depending on who you buy from. They seem to be clearly labelled so far!

Also, over on the HoneyBeeStamps Blog, they are celebrating 12 Days of Christmas, with 12 guest designers! Why not take a look to see who has been getting crafty! Here is a link to take you right to day 1–> 12 days of Christmas with HoneyBeeStamps!

Surprise!! It’s me again- Lesley! Due to technical challenges, Melissa B isn’t able to join us today, so instead I offered to jump in to share another one of my projects on the blog today.

To make this card, I decided to use the ‘beautiful’ image from the ‘<a href=”http://shop.honeybeestamps.com/beautiful-life-4×6-stamp-set/”>Beautiful Life</a>’ stamp set to create a subtle background panel for my card. To do this I mounted the stamp on the door of my MISTI tool and then stamped it in grey ink – I used Fog ink from SimonSaysStamp. Then, using the grids on my MISTI I moved the cardstock down about an inch and stamped again. I repeated this until I had five stamped words which creates a soft and subtle backdrop for the card.

Next I took a few of the smaller stamps such as the hearts, sequins and lips from <a href=”http://shop.honeybeestamps.com/beautiful-life-4×6-stamp-set/”>this set</a> and the <a href=”http://shop.honeybeestamps.com/special-delivery-4×6-stamp-set/”>Special Delivery</a> stamp set, and filled in some of the gaps between the words. This gave the stamped panel a more cohesive and rectangular look.

I love the look of teal with grey – and so I used SSS mint and SSS teal ink to stamp the gorgeous little heart images from the Beautiful Life stamp set. There is a solid image and a brush stroke image that layers right on top to create a gorgeous finished image!

Before sticking the hearts onto the card, I cut a length of crochet twine and laid it down on the card to create a fun texture to the card – I used little dots of Ranger multi medium matt to stick this in place, and rested an acrylic block on top whilst the glue dried. Then all I needed to do was add a small embossed message, also from the <a href=”http://shop.honeybeestamps.com/special-delivery-4×6-stamp-set/”>Special Delivery </a>stamp set, and add some of the <a href=”http://shop.honeybeestamps.com/diamonds/”>diamond</a> embellishments to the card as a finishing touch!

Thanks for stopping by today, and I hope you have enjoyed today’s card.

Hello everyone!
And a very Happy Monday to everyone – I am over on the Honey Bee Stamps blog today! YAY!

Today I am sharing a fresh and fun card which features the amazing new Happiness Stamp set! Isn’t it simply amazing!? One of the really fun things about Honey Bee Stamps greeting stamp sets, is the way that you can build your own greeting – for both the large and small images.

For this card, I paired up two images to create the word ‘happiness’ and stamped this onto some smooth white cardstock using my MISTI and versamark ink. This allowed me to heat emboss the image with white embossing powder, as I wanted to use the ink resist technique on this card today.

Once I had ‘happiness’ stamped, I used some of the other word stamps to build up the whole sentiment. Once again I stamped and heat embossed these onto the cardstock using some white embossing powder.

Once my embossing had cooled, I used a small ink blending tool to add some Broken China distress ink to the central part of my card – just enough so the words could be read clearly, and I faded the edges out to white for a nice soft finish.

Next I used some Lawn Fawn cloud dies to cut out a few cloud shapes. When I had figured out where I wanted the clouds to overlap, I used the large die to cut a section out of the smaller cloud die cuts – this meant that I can nestle them up next to one another on the card, and they almost look like one complete shape.

If you take a close look, you will see that each cloud is made up of two layers, and to add some dimension to the card, I used the cuttlebug swiss dots embossing folder on the top layer of the large cloud – just for fun!

The Lawn Fawn Spring Showers die set also has a cute die which cuts out little tiny raindrops, so I thought this would be a perfect addition to this card. So that my clouds were sprinkling raindrops of happiness, I stamped each die cut raindrop with a tiny love heart from the Beautiful Life stamp set. Once all my raindrops were stuck in place, I coated each one with two layers of Ranger glossy accents so they each have a gorgeous glassy domed dimension!

Thanks of joining me today, and next week on the Honey Bee Stamps Blog I have a fun interactive Christmas card to share with you guys!

Whats that? You want a sneak peek? Well, okay then… here you go!

Until then, have a wonderful week, and I shall look forward to seeing all you guys again next week – when I will well and truly be in the Christmas mood!!

Hey guys, Yes I am STILL in love with Autumn, even though it is starting to feel more like Winter outside these days! I don’t think I am quite ready to let go of my favourite season just yet…. but soon I must face reality and start my Christmas shopping!!… Soon, but not quite yet! […]